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Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

Chapter 73 Broken Hearted

Jax noticed the look on Tara's face when he told her that he and Scarlett were going away for a few days. He remembered that look from all the times she'd watched him go off with whatever girl he was pursuing at the moment back in high school. He didn't love her anymore, but he took no pleasure in hurting her either.

He had learned to cope with heartbreak by just not thinking about Tara. Having her back in town was opening the door to memories and feelings he wanted to stay buried. He was afraid that might not be possible.

"I don't think I've ever been this happy to get out of town," Jax said as he backed Scarlett's car out of the driveway.

"Am I still banned from asking questions?"

"You can ask questions as long as they don't have anything to do with what happened between the time I left you at your motel to the time I returned. I'll tell you about it later."

"OK. I thought it was nice of Tara to offer me medical advice."

"I think Tara is enjoying the power of being a doctor."

"She spent a long time in school. I don't blame her for wanting to enjoy her doctor's position a little bit."

The girls he went out with were all quick to bad mouth each other. Jax liked that Scarlett didn't do that.

"Is something wrong? You keep looking in the passenger's side mirror."

"I think there's a white Honda following us. Could you put up the roof? I don't like feeling this exposed," Scarlett said.

Jax made a couple of turns.

"Still being followed?"

She shook her head.

"No. I'm just really jumpy today. I realized that this is the fourth anniversary of what would have been my wedding day."

"What happened?"

"I left him at the altar."

"You told me that you never fall in love," Jax said.

"I don't. I wasn't in love with him."

"Why were you going to marry him?"

"My stepfather—I actually call him dad—suggested it. He told me that I might as well marry a rich man as a poor one. It sounds cold-blooded, but it wasn't really. He is about ten years older and I'd only been out of college a couple of years. He was so much more mature than the college guys I was used to.

"He also had a lot of money and showered me with gifts and stuff. It was great. We were happy together. When he proposed, I accepted because I saw this idyllic life for us."

"What happened?"

"I started to see the truth about him. I don't know if those clues were there and I didn't see them or if once I agreed to marry him, he let his guard down and I saw behind his façade."

Jax didn't think any less of Scarlett for deciding to marry a wealthy man. He liked that she admitted it. He couldn't fault her for marrying when she wasn't in love. He hadn't been in love with Wendy.

"What was that truth?"

"He was charming and wonderful as long as he got what he wanted. He also hated it if I pointed out he was wrong about something. He would come unhinged. It could be something as simple as a typo in a document.

"Sitting here it's hard to believe how someone could get upset over something as simple as someone else pointing out a typo, but he would just start yelling. Once he swept everything off his desk onto the floor. I told my dad that I had a bad feeling about the guy."

"I'm assuming this was after the engagement."

"Yes. My dad did some more investigation. A previous girlfriend and an ex-fiancée both vanished mysteriously. The girlfriend finally turned up dead. She had been tortured and cut up alive."